The Best Things to Do in Metro Phoenix This Week

Looking for a little action this week? We've got you covered. This week, you can catch a lucha libre match, witness the carnage of Monster Jam, or watch local comedians tear each other to shreds during the Phoenix Roast Battle. For more things to do, visit Phoenix New Times' curated calendar.

"The Helpers" She’s spent more than two decades making art, and three years recovering from cancer. Now, Phoenix artist Sue Chenoweth is showing new work for a solo exhibition at Shortcut Gallery, an art space shared by Phoenix General and Framed Ewe, 5538 North Seventh Street. Titled “The Helpers,” the exhibition features framed drawings and paintings.

“It was difficult to make art after three years recovering from cancer,” Chenoweth says. “I was lost, so I sat down with a good friend and began drawing without any underlying goals.”

You can see the free exhibition of her latest art from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 1. Visit the Phoenix General website. Lynn Trimble

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RuPaul’s Drag Race All StarsRuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars has returned for an epic third season. Previous contestants of the popular reality competition program are getting a second chance to sashay toward a cash prize and a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. For you cord-cutters who can’t wait to binge the VH1 show on your streaming service of choice, Kobalt has the solution. The nightclub is holding a viewing party for every episode this season. Grab your favorite cocktail and settle in for some drama.

Find out who will be RuVeal-ed as this week’s winner at 6 p.m. on Thursday, February 1, at 3110 North Central Avenue. Admission is free. For more information, visit the Kobalt website. Jason Keil

“Aridity and the Desert: Politics and Politicians” You’ve marched. You’ve voted. You’ve managed holiday dinners with opinionated relatives. Odds are, you’ll have many more politics-related encounters in the year ahead. Sometimes it’s tough to be civil, but you don’t have to go it alone. Project Humanities at ASU is holding a series of dialogues designed to help people have civil conversations about controversial or challenging topics. It’s all about listening, sharing different perspectives, and mutual respect.

During “Aridity and the Desert: Politics and Politicians,” attendees will explore why politics is always local, plus the intersection of the personal with the political. The free event runs from 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 1, at Valley Bar, 130 North Central Avenue. Participants will be selected through an online registration process. Visit the Project Humanities website. Lynn Trimble

Hand to God When two kickass Valley theater companies get together for a co-production, everybody wins. When the play features a foul-mouthed puppet, we’re not terribly surprised anymore, but it does make everything even better.

In Robert Askins’ Hand to God, mounted by Stray Cat Theatre and Phoenix Theatre, Tyrone is a felt American who began life in a Christian puppet ministry in small-town Texas. After he’s teamed with a troubled young man named Jason (whose mom embarrassingly leads the group), Tyrone’s personality evolves. Into what Jason needs, or what he is? All we know is that in rehearsals, people have been so violently amused they ceased to breathe (eventually starting again).

The 2015 Broadway production received five Tony nominations. Enjoy the opening night performance on Friday, February 2, at 8 p.m. The show runs through Sunday, February 25, at Phoenix Theatre, 100 East McDowell Road. Tickets start at $35 at 602-254-2151 or the Phoenix Theatre website. Julie Peterson

See work by Emily Ritter and other ASU art graduate students during a pop-up exhibit.

Emily Ritter/Photo by Lynn Trimble

Pop-up Exhibition Some of the Valley’s best emerging artists are working on master of fine arts degrees at Arizona State University. So, if you want to explore works by up-and-comers on the local arts scene, it’s worth seeing graduate art student exhibitions every chance you get.

Case in point: A pop-up exhibition by ASU students who call themselves The Art Group (or “TAG”). They’re showing about 30 works during a free pop-up exhibition inside the auditorium for the A.E. England building, 424 North Central Avenue. It’s happening from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday, February 2, as part of ASU’s five-day, multi-campus Open Door 2018 event.

More than a dozen grad students will have work on view, and the roster will include Emily Ritter, Ryan Eckert, Hao Jiang, Monica Wapaha, Dani Godreau, and Veronica Aponte. They work in diverse media, including painting, photography, ceramics, and sculpture. And they tackle topics from recycling to colonialism. Visit the Art Group Facebook page. Lynn Trimble

Savage BeautyEven while just eating a sandwich, dancers can make us discern and appreciate the strength and beauty of the human body. However, performers also remind us that beautiful doesn’t always go hand in hand with good. Halo Movement Collective’s Savage Beauty program of dance, reimagined since its 2015 premiere, weaves a myth of splendor so extreme it can destroy the beholder.

Employing film, photography, and fashion in Halo’s trademark synthesis, the dancers lure the audience through the venue at Unexpected Art Gallery for staggered and scrambled gallery-style performances, including one that features a bungee harness, culminating in a catwalk-staged movement piece. Showtime on Friday, February 2, is 7:30 p.m. at 734 West Polk Street. Additional performances take place Saturday, February 3. Admission is $20. Visit the Halo Movement Collective website. Julie Peterson

Versace Mariachi, Tamale Kingpin, and Ghetto Vaquero, Pedro Herrera.

Courtesy of Tempe Improv

Chingo Bling Versatile funnyman Pedro Herrera III likes nicknames. He’s got a slew of them. Versace Mariachi, Tamale Kingpin, and Ghetto Vaquero are a few. On Friday, February 2, he appears as Chingo Bling, the Mexican cowboy and rapper. It’s the character he launched his career with, in Texas in the early 2000s. Armed with a bunch of self-parodying tunes examining Mexican American border culture and related stereotypes, he entered the music biz. Stand-up became another way he could get satirical.

Find out why his YouTube channel has more than 25 million views when he performs at 7:30 p.m. at Tempe Improv, 930 East University Drive. Admission to the 21-and-over show is $25, and VIP tickets are $45 and include a meet-and greet. A two-drink minimum is required. Call 480-921- 9877 or visit the Tempe Improv website. Amy Young

Nufonia Must Fall DJ Kid Koala, author of the 2003 graphic novel Nufonia Must Fall, wanted to bring to the stage his story of a lovelorn robot who becomes romantically infatuated with an office worker. He enlisted director K.K. Barrett to create a spectacle of sight and sound. Cameras will capture the live puppet show of the story on a miniature set, which will be projected on a screen behind Koala as the Afiara Quartet plays the score.

Experience a new spin on this yarn at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 2, at Musical Instrument Museum Music Theatre, 4725 East Mayo Boulevard. Tickets are $48.50 to $68.50. There will be a meet-and-greet with Koala before this performance. For more information, visit the MIM website. Jason Keil

“Grab ’em by the teeth” is bad advice in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.

Kino Lorber, Inc.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night The way things have been going, at first, Women in Horror Month sounded like maybe it wouldn’t be such a cool thing. But it is! For nine years, February’s been a time to celebrate the contributions of women to the horror genre. (The initiative’s newsletter is called Ax Wound, and we’re in love.) FilmBar’s 2018 WiHM salute is A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a Persian-language American vampire romance from 2014. Written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour and starring Sheila Vand, the film moseys through decrepit, noir-ish Taft, California (depicting fictional Bad City, Iran), reveling in its own hip soundtrack and velvety black-and-whiteness. “It’s like Sergio Leone and David Lynch had an Iranian rock ’n’ roll baby, and Nosferatu came and babysat for them,” Amirpour says in the press kit.

Raise the stakes at 10 p.m. Saturday, February 3, at 815 North Second Street. Admission is $12. Visit the Film Bar website. Julie Peterson

See work by Kat Davis, and more than 100 other artists, during “Nasty Women: Phoenix Unite.”

Kat Davis

“Nasty Women: Phoenix Unite” The uterus has inspired some pretty impressive artwork through the years, by artists including Judy Chicago and Georgia O’Keeffe. But they’re not alone. Phoenix-based artists used diverse imagery, including female anatomy, to explore reproductive rights during last year’s “Nasty Women: Phoenix Unite” exhibition at Grand ArtHaus, 1501 Grand Avenue. And now, they’re doing it again.

More than 100 artists, including Megan Koth and Patricia Sannit, have submitted work for the latest “Nasty Women” art show, which is designed to promote civil rights for women, immigrants, the LGBT community, and others who’ve been marginalized by mainstream politics.

See what they’ve come up with from 6 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, February 3. Arrive by 7 p.m. to hear readings curated by Deborah Sussman. Featured writers include Phoenix poet laureate Rosemary Dombrowski and New Times contributor Sativa Peterson. The free event also includes T-shirt screen printing. Proceeds from all art sales benefit Planned Parenthood Arizona. Visit the Phoenix Nasty Women website. Lynn Trimble

Live Lucha Libre The less linguistically inclined might be forgiven for thinking the term “lucha libre” translates to “free lunch.” But we all know there’s no such thing, not even in Spanish. Instead, this lovely morsel of Latin alliteration translates to “free fight,” which of course manifests as “men wrestling in decorative costumes.”

So when Live Lucha Libre comes to Crescent Ballroom, 308 North Second Avenue, on Saturday, February 3, the costumes will be grand, the pageantry will be grander, and the wrestling will be real (sorta). And to reiterate: The burritos will not be free. The 21-and-over event starts at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 and up via the Crescent Ballroom website. Rob Kroehler

Truck yes.

Feld Entertainment

Monster Jam Ready for the Alien Invasion? Nah, we don’t mean a visit from outer space travelers. This is a massive truck — crafted to look like a sci-fi vehicle — making an appearance at this year’s Monster Jam. That bad boy will appear alongside other fierce autos like Grave Digger, Raminator, and Wonder Woman.

See more than 50 vehicles that have been modified into tools of destruction. These beasts on wheels will display speed and smashing power as they crush and crunch their way through the arena, competing for top spots.

The jam starts at 7 p.m. on Saturday, February 3, at University of Phoenix Stadium, 1 East Cardinals Drive in Glendale. Tickets to the event are $15 and up, and passes to the preshow pit party (which runs from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.) are an additional $10. Visit the Monster Jam website. Amy Young

Comfort over all.

Courtesy of Party America

2018 Tempe Onesie Bar Crawl Why compromise your comfort when you can party in your pajamas? On Saturday, February 3, throw on your most comfortable footie PJs and join the 2018 Tempe Onesie Bar Crawl.

The 21-and-over pajama party kicks off at 6 p.m. at Handlebar Tempe, 680 South Mill Avenue, #109, and ends at 2 a.m. with an after-party at the The Funky Monk. Besides the opportunity to stay cozy, this crawl also includes a complimentary drink or shot at the check-in locations.

Tickets are available for $15 to $20. For more information, visit the Facebook event page. Lindsay Roberts

It's all fun and games until the moment of impact in Mad Gravity.

nasa.gov

Mad Gravity Most of us have met the parents of at least one significant other. From raging bigots to people who are just a whole lot classier than we are, we’ve come to expect the unexpected. In Mad Gravity, Tommy’s fiancée’s folks are Dadaist performance artists whose living room is a full-time theater with a full-time audience. Elements that enhance that challenge: Tommy and Dakota are teenage sweethearts, the other set of in-laws is also visiting, and a comet is approaching Earth. P.S. The audience is played by the audience. Mind = blown!

Mesa Encore Theatre presents the quirky play through Sunday, February 18. Sunday, February 4’s showtime is 2:30 p.m. at MET’s Black Box, 933 East Main Street. For tickets, $15, visit the Mesa Encore Theatre website or call 480-834-9500. Julie Peterson

Horse by Cheyenne River Sioux artist Cheyenne Randall.

Courtesy of the Heard Museum

Cheyenne Randall It pays to be on mural watch in metro Phoenix, where the scene is thriving. But you’ll miss some exciting pieces if you’re only taking to the streets. Case in point: Cheyenne Randall, a Cheyenne River Sioux artist, is undertaking a new mural project at the Heard Museum, 2301 North Central Avenue, and on the Navajo Nation in Grey Mountain, Arizona.

Randall’s creating mural art at various spots both inside the museum and around its eight-acre campus. Get a glimpse of Randall’s work in progress on Sunday, February 4, when museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Museum admission is $18, which also gets you into the museum’s many exhibitions.

The project is meant to democratize art while exploring themes such as colonialism, celebrity culture, fetishizing the natural world, and identity, as it “creates connection points between the Heard and indigenous communities of Arizona,” according to museum materials. Visit the Heard Museum website. Lynn Trimble

Wasted Ink Zine Distro's wares.

Melissa Fossum

Oasis Zine Issue 2 Release Party Hate capitalism? You aren’t alone. The authors behind the Oasis Zine have delved into the anxieties that come with capitalism by reimagining our current society as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Now, the zine’s next issue is launching. And it will explore anti-capitalist themes through a collection of essays, poetry, and art.

Get a copy of the new issue at the free Oasis Zine Issue 2 Release Party at Wasted Ink Zine Distro, 2222 North 16th Street, on Sunday, February 4. Attendees will be able to meet the authors and hear readings of the zine from 7 to 9 p.m. Visit the Facebook event page. Lindsay Roberts

It's more than a little sketchy.

Michelle Sasonov

Drink and Draw An evening of sketchy fun is at hand at the reoccurring Drink and Draw open studio workshop that takes place at First Draft Book Bar. Gather with other creatives and put those pencils — or whatever your preferred drawing tool may be — into action.

You’ll bring your own supplies and draw a local model as they sit in a pose for three hours. The event is open to artists of all skill levels.

Find out how drinking and drawing mix from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Monday, February 5, at 300 West Camelback Road. Admission is $8. Call 602-274-0067 or visit the Changing Hands website. Amy Young

A view of HeatSync Labs, during last year's Southwest Maker Fest.

Ash Ponders

HeatSync Labs’ Robot Night Half the battle of creating a robot is having the right tools. During HeatSync Labs’ Robot Night on the first Monday of every month, attendees have access to soldering irons, casting equipment, laser cutters, and other necessary tools. The event brings together makers of different ages to work on projects, collaborate, and bounce ideas off each other.

The next robotics-themed night runs from 7 to 10 p.m. on February 5 at 140 West Main Street in Mesa. Participation is free, but donations are accepted. For more information, go to HeatSync Labs’ website. Laura Latzko

FuckUp Nights Phoenix Consider FuckUp Nights Phoenix the monthly master class on failure. The organization is part of a worldwide movement to change our notions of success. During the Tuesday, February 6, edition, entrepreneurs will have seven minutes and 10 PowerPoint slides to explain how they screwed up and learned the error of their ways. Afterward, attendees will have the opportunity to meet with the presenters and ask questions about how they embraced defeat and added a point to their win column.

Pick yourself up again at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, February 6, at Crescent Ballroom, 308 North Second Avenue. Admission is free. For more information, visit the Crescent Ballroom website. Jason Keil

“Japanese Art of Nature: Bonsai, Ikebana, and Japanese Gardens” Bonsai care and ikebana flower arrangements are about more than just watering and pruning. There are greater philosophical and spiritual ties to the verdant arts, and they will be the focus of a lecture and Q&A at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, February 7.

“Japanese Art of Nature: Bonsai, Ikebana, and Japanese Gardens” will highlight the Japanese art forms with a visual presentation on friendship gardens by Diana Larowe, formerly of the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix; a live demo by Sogetsu Ikebana Artist Ping Wei; and a bonsai talk and examples from landscape designers and bonsai enthusiasts Ardie and Mike Apostolos.

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Phoenix Roast Battle It will be a night of sick burns and blistering barbs as members of the local comedy scene gather to mock one of their own. Marlon Taylor is in the hot seat at this edition of the Phoenix Roast Battle, hosted by Lyfted Entertainment. Fellow comics Terrence DeLane, Ernesto Ortiz, Gene Moore, Jay Mac, Clayton Perkins, Lamar Mitchell, and Ashley Rose each will perform a seven-minute set when they’ll take shots at Taylor. And promoter Xander Garcia tells us that, once Taylor takes his jabs, there’s a final round where he gets to talk back.

The sizzling starts at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, February 7, at Stand Up Live, 50 West Jefferson Street. Admission is $15 for the 18-and-over show. and attendance requires a two-drink minimum. Call 480-719-6100 or visit the Stand Up Live website. Amy Young

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